They thought of hiding, she says, but chose to follow the rules, accepting the wrenching separation that has become the only path to a legal family life for hundreds of thousands of such couples. Under laws affecting those who married after April 2001, foreign spouses who entered without a visa must leave and seek one from a United States Consulate in their native land.
Their lawyer said that would take two months to a year. Instead, one year turned into three; Mrs. Encalada lost their apartment, and her son was hospitalized for depression at age 8. In July, after she flew to Ecuador for a joint interview at the United States Consulate in Guayaquil, officials there rejected the couple’s application with a form letter saying they had “a marriage of convenience.”
Mrs. Encalada, 32, wrote the White House, the State Department and Congressional offices to plead for help. When most did not respond, she found a new lawyer and started over. But her husband, 28, apparently lost hope. On Dec. 15, facing another Christmas far from his family, he drank poison.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/nyregion/12family.html?sq=immigration&st=cse&scp=7&pagewanted=all
[Posted by Yoori Chung]
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